A Meditation for the Monday after the Fifth Sunday in Lent | Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, 386

By Fr. Thomas N. Buchan III, Ph.D

In today’s lesson from the Gospel according to Mark we hear Jesus teach his disciples a second time that “the Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”

They did not understand this the first time they heard it (cf. Mark 8:31-38). When he had told them openly “that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again . . . Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.” Then, Jesus “rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’”

In today’s lesson, little progress has been made where the disciples’ understanding is concerned. They still don’t know what to make of what he is telling them about his impending betrayal, death, and resurrection, and now, if anything, there is what seems more like a step backwards. Perhaps as a result of Jesus’ stinging rebuke to Peter, we are told that his uncomprehending disciples are afraid to ask him what the things he tells them must mean.

Nevertheless, no matter their inability to understand him, it is indeed the case that Jesus is not only telling them what will—what must!—happen, he is also explaining to his disciples what it means for him to be God’s anointed, what it means for him to be the Messiah Peter confessed him to be, what it means for him to accomplish the good and gracious and wise will of the good and gracious and wise God. In this one—in the one who must be betrayed and be handed over and be killed and rise again—in Jesus Christ, self-denial and suffering service and even death on a cross are shown —revealed—to be the way God makes his way among us, the way he opens to us, and the way in which he invites us to follow him.

But even having been instructed by Jesus in the way of self-denial, in the way of the cross, in the way of self-offering love, the disciples seem convinced of—or seem at least susceptible to—a counterfeit wisdom. And—if we are being honest—we might acknowledge that it is a counterfeit wisdom with which we are altogether familiar.

“Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house [Jesus] asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the way?’ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.”

In some ways, it seems hard to imagine that by this point in the story the disciples would commit such an egregiously amateurish error as to argue amongst themselves—in earshot of the Lord!—which of them was the greatest. They may not yet understand all that he has been telling them, but already they know themselves to be in the presence of true greatness, to be in the presence of the power of God at work in the world in and through the ministry of Jesus Christ. They have heard him say and they have seen him do incredible, powerful, miraculous things. They have also heard and seen him humbly efface himself, deny himself, conceal himself, keep himself secret, and predict his destiny not in terms of worldly pomp and grandeur, but in the very terms of suffering, rejection, and death on a cross that they continue to find so difficult to understand. It is tempting to think that by this time they ought to know better. But then, so should we.

It is not difficult to say what it is about the human condition that inclines all men and women everywhere to the same worldly, unspiritual, even devilish, conceits we can see clearly in Jesus’ argumentative disciples, or—for that matter—in ourselves. It is not difficult to say that this is “sin,” but—even during Lent, when we are trying to be attuned to such things—it can still be difficult to remember how terribly, how thoroughly, how mercilessly it afflicts us and how prone we are to misunderstanding even the things Jesus tells us plainly. It can be difficult to remember how great is our need of God’s grace—grace that exposes our foolishness, grace that teaches us a wisdom that is not our own, grace that teaches us his wisdom, that calls and empowers us to follow where he leads in ways that we struggle to perceive as greatness.

The life Christ calls us to share with him—the wise way of the wisdom of God—cuts against the grain of what masquerades as understanding, worldly wisdom. Against human envy and ambition, against measuring ourselves against one another, stands the humility and self-denial, the selflessness and self-sacrifice of Christ’s cross.

Fr. Thomas N. Buchan III, Ph.D. is the Associate Professor of Church History at Nashotah House Theological Seminary and the priest-in-charge at St. Anskar’s Episcopal Church in Hartland, Wisconsin. He holds degrees from Wheaton College (B.A. in biblical studies; M.A. in church history) and Drew University (M.Phil. and Ph.D. in theological and religious studies). His doctoral dissertation focused on the doctrine of Christ’s descent to the dead in the works of St. Ephrem the Syrian. Before coming to Nashotah House, Fr. Buchan was an associate professor at Asbury Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Shelly, have two children and two dogs. The readings for the preceding devotional may be located here from Forward Movement.